Never say Never
by ISolemlySwearThatImUppToNoGood
Summary: Some people believe in fate, Aspen Sparks simply beleives in an unfortunate set of coincidences. However, when she receives her letter for Hogwarts, she must put all her disbelief behind her and learn to accept that the world outside the orphanage is far more strange than she thought.


Every life is different from the moment we take our first breath to the moment we take our last, each is unique. Mostly, it is our decisions that carve out the pathway for the turn of events that lead us partly however it is chance. Some people call this fate, luck, God's plan Aspen Spark was not one of these people. She began her life as it appeared it would continue. Alone. A tiny pink baby, premature, with ocean blue eyes and a shock of thick dark hair. She cried so much that she was separated from the other new-borns in a small side room in fear of disturbing them. The nurses checked on her every hour making sure she was warm fed and dry. She was left alone mostly in her first few days of existence no one had the time when there were more pressing matters to attend. In a room, just along the corridor from Aspen, her mother fought for her life but her heart rate was steadily growing out of control and her struggled breaths caught in her through. When the young lady died, she breathed the name of her daughter. She hadn't even held her. In the hospital room with the flat line beep of the heart monitor as a sombre back tone, the nurse stood and left, unable to take it any longer. It had been her first day on the job. She dashed along the hall, her rubber shoes squeaking on the green mottled limnonym. She pushed through into the room where Aspen had been set. For one of the first times in its life, the baby was not crying. The nurse gazed into the hospital bassinette and the baby gazed back up to her, deep blue eyes unblinking. Her tiny rosebud lips were set in a line and her pudgy fists were clenched. The nurse swallowed shakily. In the world where there was so much hate it was only a parental love that could protect a child but Aspen had no one, not even herself. She was alone.

Of course, with no obvious father and no other relatives to speak of, the orphanage was the only place for Aspen. They treated her well there, she was well fed and provided with a bed to sleep but the staff showed her no more than the required amount of affection. She wasn't a particularly charismatic child, she was quiet but feisty and never smiled. She was smart though, very smart. By the age of four, she could read and write to perfection and she could do advanced sums, if she only applied herself in her lessons she could have been great but she didn't see the point. From a young age, she was labelled as weird by the other orphans, she liked to think it was because she was smart although it might have been due to the inexplicable things that happened around her. She couldn't help being odd, she just was. For a year when she was five, she had bizarre dreams, weird and wonderful things happened in her dreams and nine times out of ten it led to her wetting the bed much to the annoyance of the care workers. From then she was labelled as a bed wetter as well as a weirdo but from then on, she decided she didn't care what the other thought about her, her dreams was the only time anything exciting happened in her beige life. She spent most of her time alone, often disappearing for hours, even days on end without being missed. She found solitude in books. By the age of eight, she had read through the orphanages small but rich library of books twice, working her way through thick stacks of chronicles whilst the other children struggled with their ABCs. She longed to have remotely exciting to happen in her exclusively unexciting life. It was only on the week before her eleventh birthday she realised how truly miraculous she was.

Aspen sat at the battered breakfast table tentatively nibbling on the corner of a slice of toast that was somehow simultaneously burned and soggy. She wasn't hungry, she never was for orphanage muck. She was a skinny little thing anyway although that might equally have been down to the beginning of adolescence. Through from the hallway they heard the bang of the letterbox, signalling the arrival of the post.

"Justin!" Barked the care worker, "Fetch the post, and bring it back immediately." Obediently, Justin scraped back his chair and scuttled away. He remerged a moment later, clutching a single letter and looking at it completely and utterly bewildered.

"Go on." Snapped the same care worker "Who is it for?"

"Aspen S-S-Spark sir." It took a moment for the bodies at the table to process this information before their heads all turned to face Aspen slowly. Now a days, Aspen just tended to fade into the background, a nobody, they had forgotten she was even there. She was as shocked as everyone else to see the thick cream envelope in the boy's hands no one had ever once written to her, there was no one who would. Gingerly, she tucked her protective of dark hair behind one ear and looked up.

"Yeah right." She muttered unsteadily, scared this is all some kind of prank.

"No, really!" Said the boy, continuing to sound genuinely shocked. He offered her the letter and she took it from his outstretched hand shakily. The cream paper was heavy and of a quality that Aspen, as an orphan, was not used to. On the front was her name and oddly specific address printed, clear as day in swirly jade ink and on the back, was a purple wax seal printed with a crest.

"I don't understand." She said simply, turning the envelope over repeatedly in her hands. "It hasn't got a stamp I-"

"Just open it." Said a boy impatiently.

"Yeah weirdo what'd it say." Aspen looked down at the letter before stuffing it into her jean pocket much to the irritable groans of her house mates.

"Permission to be excused?" She mumbled to the carer.

"Granted." He said although he too had seemed eager to know the contents of the letter. She rushed away from the breakfast room leaving her toast untouched. She only dared fish out her letter when she was sure she was alone in the dormitory. Slipping her finger under the wax seal, she pulled out a thick sheet of parchment form the envelope. The message inside was written in the same jade as the address.

 _HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

 _Headmistress: Minerva McGonagall_

 _(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

 _Dear Miss Spark,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts Scholl of Witchcraft and Wizardry._


End file.
